How would you describe the day of a Trappist, the spiritual discipline?
Well, the day of a Trappist is rather monotonous, but it’s full of activities. It’s monotonous in the sense that one day pretty much looks like another day. We get up at 3:00 in the morning and the first prayer is at 3:15. And then it’s still dark, you know, and it’s a nice, quiet time for reading until about 5:45 when we have Lauds, which is, you know, like a 25 minute prayer, choral prayer. Mass follows that and work begins at 8:00 in the morning. We work for four hours through, until 12:00. Then 12:15 is midday prayer, then lunch after that. We have the main meal in the middle of the day, and there’s a break until None, which is at 2:15, and then work in the afternoon or some, maybe, yard work or time to read, to do extra things. Vespers is 5:30 in the evening, supper after that, and then Compline at 7:30, and we go to bed at 8 o’clock. We still get seven hours of sleep.
